I'm not a big fan of Peter Greenaway's movies - they're usually too abstruse, confrontational and willfully "clever" for their own good - but Act Of God is a minor classic, if only because it presents a series of widely differing accounts of what it's like when the unthinkable happens, in this case, being struck by lightning. The film taps into a morbid curiosity that, like it or not, exists in most people, and satisfies our desire to know more about a bizarre 'natural' phenomena.
Peter Greenaway is not a typical documentary maker. That is what I like about him.
I rented the DVD of this film. The documentary itself is probably a 7.
This is a brilliant short documentary made by the infamous Peter Greenaway for Thames Television program "Take 6" in 1980. For this project, Greenaway tackles the task of interviewing British subjects that have been struck by lightning...
I was interested in seeing this movie because of the tag-line "A look at the metaphysical effects of being struck by lightning." This movie has absolutely NOTHING to do with scientifically documenting claims of metaphysical events as regards lightning strikes.
I do not want to comment on other people's comments, but the thin line between documentary and fictional filmmaker has always been tenuous, and today everyone knows that even Flaherty staged and arranged many filmed events in his legendary "Nanook of the North" (1922). And why should a filmmaker with an artistic sensibility not transform any real events into "faction", as we saw lately with Ari Folmans excellent animated documentation "Waltz with Bashir" (2008)?
A good little film, with good acting and lots of suspense, but unfortunately it ends rather abruptly and almost unresolved. Not that issues in life itself are always resolved, but here it seems as if the writer was unsure of what to do with his characters.
'Act of God' is a film about lightning. There are stories, some miraculous, others tragic, of people who have been struck by it; various people interested in it, or more generally, in the effects of electricity on the human brain, tell us why; and there is also some footage of storms.
First of all, this film is worth seeing simply for its cinematography. It is replete with awe-inspiring time-lapses of mounting storms and Olympian lightning displays.
